


We Need to Talk About Ben

by Saentorine



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adolescence, Anger, Angry Kylo Ren, Angst, Backstory, Ben Solo's early fascination with helmets, Childhood, Daddy Issues, Driving, Family, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Fear, Flying, Force Sensitivity, Gen, Kylo Ren Backstory, Married Couple, Married Life, Millennium Falcon - Freeform, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, My First Work in This Fandom, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Spanking, Temper Tantrums, The Force, Trouble, headcanon: Ben Solo is a shitty pilot, mind probe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saentorine/pseuds/Saentorine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Solo is not the ace pilot he knows his father expects him to be. He’s an angry and sensitive kid with a clear gift with the Force, and Han and Leia struggle with figuring out what to do with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flight

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently wheresoever there is a fraught father-son relationship I will follow with angsty fic.

Han was giving him flying lessons again.

The announcement from his father over breakfast had prompted an enthusiastic nod of assent but inside Ben's stomach flipped, torn between anticipation and nervousness. He took his time poking at the food until it was too cold to enjoy and dawdled getting dressed. He _should_ have been excited, he knew. He was learning to fly. What’s more, he was learning to fly from _Han Solo_ , decorated pilot of the last war who had once made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

But maybe that was the problem.

Ben didn’t know how his skills compared to most pilots his age by now, but he certainly knew he wasn’t good enough for Han to have put the Falcon in hyperdrive the very first day he had sat in the copilot’s seat. Maybe someone’s child somewhere would have shrieked in unabashed delight at the starlight frozen into solid stripes as the ship lurched into space faster than light itself, but Han’s actual son had gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white and swallowed down a mouthful of vomit to keep his father from knowing his terror.

Things had not improved much since then. It had been several months now and while he could under Han’s guidance get the Millennium Falcon airborne and back again without killing anyone, even the prospect of sitting in the pilot’s seat filled him with a deep-seated dread not distant to the nausea of that first voyage. He _wanted_ to be as excited as Han clearly was to teach him, and to impress him and validate his expectations that of course his son would excel at this. Han insisted he was getting better, but very slowly and only with extensive practice, and to Ben every simple joyride felt as complex and exhausting as fighting a battle-- and his father's smile was never quite as wide once the ride was over as it had been when he suggested they take a flight.

“Are we going anywhere special today?” Ben asked as they boarded. Often Han’s lessons included a side outing to some out of the way locale within the system where he had business with “friends.” The first time it had seemed quite the adventure, hiding silently in the hold and wondering if he might be kidnapped or held ransom if his father’s sinister company knew Han Solo’s son had accompanied him. But it quickly became apparent that Han’s missions were, although often in the seedier reaches of their worlds, hardly high-risk: a game of sabacc for a small prize here, a wager on a podrace there. His uncle Luke was diligently preparing a generation of Jedi to continue in the age-old fight against the dark side and Leia suspected enough of the lingering resentment of the Empire’s old allies to begin recruiting a few pilots she could count on in case the New Republic continued to twiddle its thumbs, but there was nothing and no one to fight, not yet, and Han was clearly bored and missing his younger days of danger and adventure when he had more interesting things to do than train yet-unnecessary airmen and his young son.

Ben was kept on board to keep him from getting lost or in trouble somehow, and probably as a safeguard against Leia learning through him where Han had made his landings. Though Ben was certain Leia already knew-- she wasn’t stupid, after all-- and simply didn’t think enough of it to ask him to stop. She was too busy trying to convince a naïve Senate of a threat lurking in the recesses of the galaxy far more sinister than any of her husband’s clandestine antics. The dregs of the former Empire had not been completely wiped out and posed danger to their hard-won peace, despite the Republic’s denial, and for now she was nearly alone in tracking them. Her frustration with their questioning of her credibility was obvious, sucking away her patience as well as her time, leaving her with little to expend on her family.

“No, this one’s all yours,” Han replied with a confidence Ben wasn’t sure he deserved. “You’ll just take her into orbit once and bring her back down. Today I want to see you nail the landing.”

Chewbacca still wasn’t thrilled with riding passenger, but he gave up his seat to Han while Ben sat in the pilot’s chair. He was starting to grow and didn’t need to crank the seat up quite as high as he used to, but his spindly frame was still dwarfed by it.

Han’s assurance that the flight was “all his” wasn’t entirely true. His father was an insufferable copilot, and even as they remained safe on the ground prepping for takeoff procedure he issued his orders liberally, without waiting to see whether Ben could remember for himself. It did little to calm his nerves.

“Yes, sir,” “Got it,” “Of course,” “I know,” Ben muttered successively in reply to each command. It really didn’t matter what he said; Han wasn’t really listening for a response. Even if he anticipated aloud his next command, Han would just say it along with him like it had been his instructions in the first place.

By now Ben had grasped the basics of takeoff, though the Falcon was a little shaky clearing the hangar and nipped the side. Ben whacked the dashboard with the flat of his hand as if it had been her fault.

“Watch it!” scolded Han as Chewbacca whined indignantly. 

“You hit her sometimes,” Ben pointed out with a stiff jab of his lower lip.

“Sometimes I press her buttons firmly, with _deliberation_ ,” Han replied through gritted teeth. “I don’t just smash the entire console.”

Han’s following instructions were even more gruff and critical, as if holding a grudge at him for his lack of due respect to the legendary Millennium Falcon-- that most of the young pilots, when Han was nowhere nearby, admitted was hopelessly out of date. Ben knew it meant something that Han insisted he learn to fly her first, but at the same time, some days he wished he could just bang up some old X-wing and not invoke so much contention and disappointment.

However, as his frustration and irritation built, so did a feeling of energy and purpose: he would prove Han’s obvious doubts in him wrong. This singular thought, laced with ambition-- _aggression_ , even—gave him focus. It took a while for him to balance it, to channel it where he needed it, but when it hit it hit like a heavy drug; as he brought the Falcon into orbit he felt as if he were no longer possessed by his own body, but high into some detached flow where the physical world could be manipulated by will. It was as if he were guiding the ship by intuition rather than with his hands on the controls, cradling her cantankerous frame in the soft energy channeled by his mind. He could even feel Han beside him noticeably calm, his breathing steady and confident in his flight. He was competent, capable, perfectly in control.

Until suddenly, he wasn’t.

Sometimes it was an unexpected obstacle that threw him off. Sometimes it was a minor glitch in one of the Falcon’s operations. Sometimes it was just a random break in concentration without any explanation at all. 

This time, it was the landing. As he made his descent he felt Han tensing beside him, senses primed, fingers twitching with the urge to seize the controls and lead the Falcon steadily through the process he knew by instinct of experience but did not yet trust his son to perform. The thought that his father was nervous about his execution of the coming steps jolted Ben from his placid concentration, setting his heart rate flying and his head swimming with doubts again. The flow was lost.

Anticipating Han’s coming instructions in his sharp manner, as the hangar came into view Ben beat him to it by pulling back on the throttle too early and too fast and the nose of the Falcon dipped perilously low. Han sucked in a sharp gasp through his teeth, barely stopping himself reaching over for the controls, but Ben overcorrected and she careened upward again-- though not fast enough for the back of her to clear the ground. Both of them winced and gritted their teeth—Chewbacca made a frightened moan-- as the cabin shook with the impact. The Falcon came to a halt on the landing strip just before the hangar, but there was a hiss and something began beeping furiously in the back.

For a moment it there was silence in the cabin. Then Han quipped, “Well, we’ll just fix her up again like we did last time.”

It had been a salutary lesson the first or second time, working intimately in the gears and pipes of the Falcon and coming to understand all the subtle pieces that went into her flight, but by now there had been six or seven _last times_ and both of them were losing patience with the repetition. The pilots of Leia’s small fleet surely hadn’t failed to notice the number of times Han Solo’s son had barely brought the Falcon into the hangar and spent the next few days making her skyworthy again.

The prospect of another several tense days of grime and orders from his father in the steaming bowels of the ship-- _yet again_ \-- combined with the adrenaline of the tumultuous landing and those final, shameful words of resignation was simply too much.

Frustration and disappointment rumbled up inside Ben like a volcano, exploding into an outburst. He let out a guttural shout and began pummeling both of his fists down against the dash. He had been so close to executing it perfectly, so close to making both of them proud with his progress.

“Hey!” Han shouted, trying to grab one of his arms only to be nailed in the shoulder by his son’s elbow. Chewbacca made a gentle cry of reassurance, protesting the boy’s overreaction, but the Wookiee’s pity only made Ben feel more incompetent-- and angrier. He kicked up against the underside of the dashboard and in his chaotic flailing whacked the side of his fist against the throttle so hard it tore the skin, causing him to shriek another decibel louder as he wrenched the throttle furiously back and forth with his good hand in “punishment” for hurting him and furiously tried to shake out the pain in the other.

Han shut his eyes and sighed quietly, waiting until Ben stopped rocking in his chair and his ragged breathing slowed, and the cabin was quiet again.

Then, eyes red-rimmed and lips dark from the pressure of biting down on them, Ben sheepishly turned towards his father, checking his response. In the moment he had felt a surge of assuring power as his companions could only watch in terrified awe of his rage, and the release of anger had soothed him-- or at least _exhausted_ him. However, the edgy silence that followed was uncomfortable and the hollow place the anger had vacated was immediately filled with shame instead.

It was this damnable self-awareness that pushed Han over the edge. “If you’re going to _purposely_ wreck my ship, you can fix her up yourself,” he snapped as he stood from his seat.

Ben paled and then flushed as if he had been struck, but Han’s patience had been too far breached to wait for an apology. His own temper was at its end and he knew he needed to leave; he had probably already said too much and Leia was always on him not to respond to Ben’s anger with his own lest it encourage the darker aspects of his Force powers. He strode out while Chewbacca gave a soft garble of anguish for the tension between father and son but stayed put, knowing Ben would need help with the shutdown procedures.

Tears clouded Ben’s vision and he sniffed liberally as he tried to subdue this second wave of irrepressible emotion-- the despair of disappointment-- before rising to begin the shutdown procedures. Chewbacca took care of whatever was beeping and returned to shadow him at a respectful distance in silence, checking he had done his job accurately-- which he did. But he finished before he had fully composed himself again and, fearful of walking out exposed into the hangar where another pilot might see him, plucked up an old X-wing helmet, a relic from the last war he supposed Han kept on board out of his minimal sense of sentiment, in hopes that the orange visor would at least obscure the telltale color around his eyes.


	2. Fight

Han was agitated when he burst into the family’s living quarters, where Leia had been poring over an illuminated screen of a map of the outer rim. Barely looking up, she handed him a drink.

“Spectacular landing, _again_. She’ll need three days’ work at least,” he grumbled. “And of course he threw a fit in the cockpit afterward. Banged up _himself_ more than anything else, but—“

“If she’s been through this much already I hardly think Ben will do her in,” Leia assured him before he allowed himself to pit both of his “babies” against one another.

“It just doesn’t make any sense! He’s got nothing but ace pilots on both sides of the family; how is none of this sticking?”

“I’m not a pilot,” Leia pointed out.

“You’ve never tried.”

“For the sake of your ship, maybe it’s good I never did,” she quipped. “Some of us are built for different fates. We already know he has other gifts. Luke has still been asking.”

“We never told him no! And he’s already given him all those exercises to work on."

“You know that’s not the same. He needs to be in the company of other Jedi, part of their Order-- however small.”

“But if he doesn’t master flying before he goes to train with him, when is he going to have the chance?”

Leia suppressed a smile at that, knowing it was not just about the flying; both of them had lost parents and it was difficult to consider sending their own son away by choice. “Maybe this chance is more important. Luke has been recruiting children; he wants him while he’s still young. That’s how they used to do it in the old days.”

“That’s just some old-fashioned tradition. Luke was _how_ old? And he was just fine.”

“Maybe it would be good for Ben to be successful in this first. Maybe he needs to learn the patience of a Jedi before he has the nerve for flying.”

“That would be--“

But Han’s thoughts went unheard as Ben had entered. Both parents immediately fell silent, but Ben knew they had been discussing him; even if he couldn’t sense it, which he could, it read clearly on their faces. However, he kept walking; he didn’t want to be asked any questions about his ride which had been an obvious failure, nor did he wish to risk another outburst, which he could already feel brewing as the unpleasant needling of shame and disappointment had yet had no release. All he wanted was to escape into the quiet privacy of his room and lose himself in practicing the handful of Jedi training exercises Luke had taught him on his last visit-- something he actually seemed to be good at, at least when he was alone with no one watching.

But Han spoke to him hastily before he could pass. “Did you get the Falcon shut down and locked for the night? Did Chewie check everything?” he asked. Then, squinting at his odd choice of headgear: “Take off that helmet."

The nagging, which Ben took to presume he hadn’t done these things correctly a thousand times before, was like shooting a bullet into sitting dynamite. His barely-suppressed nerve again bubbled up and over what he could contain. Han wanted him to take off the helmet-- so he took off the helmet, and flung it towards the both of them.

It smashed the screen in front of Leia, sending up a shower of glass and sparks. She threw up her hands just in time to block the shards from hitting her in the face. Ben’s own face crumpled into terrified regret only visible for a moment before he whirled around and fled to his room.

Han was after him like a shot. “Ben!” he shouted, his voice cracking like a whip. 

There was no functioning lock on his door; Ben had long ago learned how to Force push it shut on intruders when he wanted privacy. However, with his power unstable in his distress it only took a rough heave-ho for Han to push it open.

Ben turned with fists clenched at his sides, ready for his father to yell at him from the doorway-- but _not_ ready for him stride forward and seize him by the scruff of the neck as he sat purposefully on the edge of his bed. Unprepared as he was Ben posed little resistance aside from a shout of protest as he fell across his father’s legs and several sharp smacks landed on his upturned rear.

"Quit making an idiot of yourself!" was what Han came up with to yell, though that didn't begin to cover the half of it.

Ben scrambled to free himself from his father’s grasp, kicking and clawing at the floor his arms were long enough to reach. His own anger had barely subsided and now Han's collided with it, setting it off like a nuclear blast. There was no denying Han's own temper, but although he shouted and dragged Ben by his collar he had always refrained from striking him, and this new development struck him with terror that he had finally crossed a line and something had irrevocably changed between them. Without assurance against this, the pain and indignity of what he was subjecting him to filled him with an overwhelming itch to hurt Han back, badly, even _kill_ him-- and yet at the base of that desire was also the fear of it: the fear that once he became angry enough, he _might_ indeed hurt Han far more than he could predict or control. 

As little thought as he had put into it Han had expected a little struggling and squirming but ultimately for Ben to figure out he deserved it and settle down. However, his struggling only worsened with every smack and he seemed no more concerned now about the possibility of landing a solid kick to his father than he had for his mother’s safety a moment ago-- and what Han had intended to be a quick, chastening jolt hardened into a resolve to make him truly appreciate the danger he was flirting with. Ben reached back frantically to shield himself, struggling to get a firm grip on the assaulting hand by digging in with his nails, but Han pulled free and pinned his wrists to his back before continuing with an extra hearty spank to his upper thigh. Ben kicked harder in response to the tightened restriction on his movement, but Han hauled him forward so he didn't have angle enough to kick.

Han made some trite comment about having a little damn self-control but Ben had all but tuned him out. Physically unable to evade the spanking, rather than the claustrophobia he expected a strange calm suddenly settled over him. The repetition of pain he had been trying so hard to escape now seemed to steady him, giving his wild anger focus. Instead of volatile, he became centered. He could enter that flow again, that place where he felt in control. He forced himself to concentrate . . . 

Han wasn’t sure what happened. One minute he Ben restrained; the next his arm and shoulder had gone stiff, no longer heeding his own will. Ben crumpled to the floor on his knees beside him. Han would have shouted out or reached for him but found he could do neither-- only stare down at him, immobile.

Ben lifted his eyes and glared at Han, mind racing with angry, vengeful thoughts: wishing he could hurt him back, wishing he could make him know how that felt, wishing he could see what in the galaxy his father had been thinking to treat him that way.

And then, shockingly, as he stared him down . . . Han’s mind opened and he _could_.

It was a physical space, though obviously incorporeal, a multi-dimensional maze of mist and memory and impression in words and objects and feelings. He could focus on any one thing he wanted and probe deeper, or wander further in to find what he was looking for. He did not get far before the shock of this unexpected success broke his concentration and he was out again-- but not before he had gleaned the vulnerable thoughts on the forefront of his father’s mind: the anger that Ben had almost hurt Leia and overpowered him, the shock in what Ben was becoming, the fear that he had done something wrong and was driving Ben away from him. 

Han released an exhausted gasp when he found his body was his own again. His head throbbed. As he had been held frozen, as his son had stared him down, he had felt as if something were probing the inside of his own mind, pulling his own thoughts up for him to read aloud. Since all he could see was his son’s dark gaze that was all he could think was the cause of it-- but was that _possible_? He had seen Luke use the Force on objects and energy and other people, but he’d never had it inflicted on him so personally. How could a kid with a few month’s minimal hands-off training even do that?

“What happened?” he asked, unsure of whether to be more angry or unsettled.

Ben did not respond immediately but stood upright, very slowly, until at his standing height he had a few inches over his seated father and his eyes met his with a calm fury. 

“I hate you,” he hissed. Knowing the effect it would have it felt powerful to say it, powerful and satisfying to see the flicker of shock and insult across his father’s expression.

However, blinking away the last of the headache, Han recovered almost immediately. “No, you don’t. You’re just ashamed I called you out on your behavior when you’re already angry with yourself.”

The casual dismissal of Ben’s assertion-- which nailed his own vulnerabilities as surely as he had read Han’s, and without even needing to probe his mind-- made him feel even more painfully impotent, and the gap he felt in his sense of power and control was filled again with searing rage. Desperate for some kind of retaliation he seized the disengaged training remote Luke had given him recently from the floor and held it aloft in threat.

“Ah-!” Han raised his finger in threat. “Throw that-- hit me with that-- and I’m hauling you right back over my lap.”

Ben was too worked up and exhausted-- and frankly afraid of what he might do this time-- to try to resist _that_ again, but calming his anger was like trying to swallow rising vomit. He dropped the remote but visibly shuddered with the effort of trying to contain it, eyes misting over with tears. 

Han’s gaze wavered over him, trying to understand. Witnessing the absurd extremes of his son’s temper finally stilled his own, and truth be told whatever had just happened in his head frightened him. “I’m not mad at you for the crash, Ben,” he said evenly, in a tone that straddled the assurance of a father with the pleading of one cornered by a wild animal. Chewbacca was four times the size of Ben and his temper had never frightened him as much. “You’re learning; it happens. But this _anger_ doesn’t help. These outbursts . . . they have to stop.”

He could see that Ben was still struggling with the emotion coursing through him. It was hard to tell but it seemed as if he was feeding off of it, purposely cycling it back through himself instead of allowing its release. 

Han reached out a tentative hand to cup his son’s cheek. If words failed to reach him, perhaps touch-- this time, a gentler one-- would. Ben flinched just slightly, but allowed it. “Why do you do this to yourself?” Han asked. “What can we do to help you?”


	3. Resolve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Han and Leia are that couple that drags up every old fight they've ever had every time they argue . . .

Han felt calmer as he left his son’s room, but Leia had only heard the tussle and Ben’s shouting from behind the door as she fussed with replacing the broken screen.

“So now I’m sure his room’s in ruins as well?” she concluded sharply aloud as he passed, voice on the edge of hysteria.

“If it is, he’s got another coming.”

“We talked about this, Han.”

“Then maybe we need to talk about it again,” he stopped and faced her. “One of these days he’s going to hurt somebody. Snap into a rage while he’s flying and get everyone on board killed. And what was _that_?—I asked him a perfectly reasonable question and he just exploded. He almost hurt you!”

“If I had a pilot for every time someone in this galaxy _almost_ hurt me, I’d already have a fleet to outnumber the Republic’s,” she replied before the fire in her eyes reignited. “You know how I feel about hitting him, about using anger and terror to punish him. And you agreed with me.”

“You’re acting like I maimed the kid. Any lingering pains he’s got by this time tomorrow will only be his guilty conscience-- with any luck.”

“You scared and humiliated him. You know how the Force works, Han; subjecting him to fear and anger is not going to solve anything. We have to be patient with him.”

“He’s already _got_ the anger, in case you hadn’t noticed; little good _patience_ is doing him. It seems to me high time he faced the natural consequences of going around in a constant rage to the point he’s dangerous. Maybe no one ever laid a hand on you in your pampered childhood, _Princess_ , but some of us learned how to survive in reality,” he sneered, his own doubts and the troubling incident that had passed between them making him defensive as he resorted to old arguments from long ago and far away. 

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “And you have never considered that there might have failures in your own upbringing that you might do better for him?”

“It’s not about giving him a perfect life! You think the universe is perfect? He’s not always going to be surrounded by his family and calm old Jedi he can bounce his anger off of with no consequences. He can’t just smack up against anybody with his temper roaring like that. Better he learns it from me than them.” 

“Oh, like you don’t just run in guns blazing and ask questions later. I seem to recall a certain incident in a trash compactor-- and Luke told me the very first time he saw you, you took out some poor Rodian who—“ 

“Some poor . . . _Greedo??_ Greedo shot at me first!”

“Yes, I know you like to tell it that way since you’ve become an 'honest' hero. You don’t have to tell it to _me_ , Han.” She rolled her eyes. “After all these years, can’t you just trust that I love you despite all your faults, without constantly trying to prove yourself to me?”

“Clearly I can’t, since you don’t even trust my judgement when it comes to our son.”

“ _Should_ I trust your judgement, when you’ve done precisely what you agreed you wouldn’t?”

“At least I’m doing something! You act like ignoring the problem is going to fix it.”

“ _Ignoring_??” The accusation put her on the offensive, since she so often felt she was the only one in the galaxy paying any attention to the rising threats to their world, besides Luke, and she was ridiculed for it to boot. She stood upright and gestured to the map in indication of her work. "How can you say--"

“I’m not talking about the damn Republic, I’m talking about Ben. You want to stop the spread of something built on anger and hate, it seems to me you start with the people you know who might latch on to that kind of thing. Isn’t that how the whole damn Empire got started in the first place? An angry kid with too much power?"

“How can you even compare Ben to—-“ she sputtered in fury, “ _He_ didn't singlehandedly--“ She practically puffed up to complete her thought, taking on her most formal tone. “I'm trying to build a better universe for him and _everyone's_ children. There have always been dark forces in the universe. If they never emerge from the shadows, then no one can be corrupted by them.”

Han couldn’t stand when she spoke to him as a senator and general, evading the emotional core of their discussion. As far as he concerned, it ended the conversation. 

“Fine; you know better than I do,” he snapped as he began to roughly pull on his jacket. “That’s all _your_ side of the family, after all.” 

He stalked out to find Chewbacca and suggest they go for a ride-- if the Falcon could handle it, anyway-- or find some noisy cantina somewhere they didn’t need to talk. As usual, Leia did not beg him to stay.

***

Ben had begun to calm down. He hadn’t been able to put into words what he needed from Han when he asked, but his offer had soothed him, cutting off the circulation of his anger and dissolving it into serene release. Perhaps it was because _that_ had been what he needed, to have simply been reassured that his father was still willing to make such an offer. That he was just as doggedly stubborn about this as he was in teaching him to fly. That after all of Ben’s anger and violence and protestations of hatred, he was not despised or feared or going to be abandoned. That all was still well. 

He slid down beside his bed and began to mentally toy with the furniture in his room, seeing what he could lift and for how long. The only feeling Ben knew that perhaps exceeded the drug of forceful power he felt when his rage was centered and controlled was the great flow of energy in these times when there was _no_ anger left in him. When all of his emotions had fled or quieted, there was nothing left but pure placidity, an empty receptiveness to the flow of energy he knew as the Force. Instead of hyper-focused on one particular thing, he felt as if he could sense the entire universe flowing through him without limits or bounds. If he chose to observe or tweak something in his surroundings, it acquiesced readily to his will. It was a blissful experience. The only trouble was that with so many doubts and frustrations roaring inside of him most of the time, he did not yet know how to get to this place except by chance.

However, the serene openness of his mind also made him more conscious of the rising tension of his parents’ quarrel only rooms away.

He closed his eyes and sighed when he heard the slam of the door after his father. It wasn’t uncommon for him to need an evening away, but he was always so dramatic about it, employing it like a weapon to finish a fight. Ben could tell he did it as much to prove he _could_ than simply because he needed the space. Han always needed to feel like he still had freedom as an option.

Shortly after he heard footsteps approaching and for a moment he wondered if his mother would come to him, but they disappeared into her own quarters farther down the hall. As usual, Leia followed her own advice to leave him to work through his emotions for himself, which seemed to be her own interpretation of what Luke had told her of Jedi meditation techniques. She would defend his faults and advise patience to Han every time, but she seldom tried to counsel him herself. Her head was lost in a bigger game against impersonal foes it was easy to see as the enemy.

His mind still reeled with the thoughts he had gleaned from his brief foray into his father's mind. He had never expected _Han_ to be so frightened-- Han, who had been on the run from bounty hunters and fought in battles against the Empire-- and frightened of _him_ , his own scrawny temperamental son. It wasn't right that a child should have such intimate access to a parent's fears and insecurities, and now that he knew it seemed to taint everything.

When he imagined being sent off to train with his uncle, beginning the path of a Jedi-- his birthright and destiny as far as he was concerned, his dream since the first time Luke had told him, eyes glowing with recognition and purpose, that he was strong with the Force-- he always pictured his parents brimming with pride and amazement for his talents and what he would become. The fear and resignation guiding their decision now made it feel more like a question of abandonment, whether to accept they had lost their power over him and ought to foist him off on another.

It was all _their_ fear, in the end. Now that he had such intimate insight into his father's own fears, he felt resentful and ashamed for ever letting such comparatively powerless beings as his parents make him feel inadequate. And how could they condemn _his_ anger when they could barely talk to each other without it turning into an argument? 

Besides, why did he need to flee from it or ignore it, suppress and feel shame in it . . . when he could use it?

He knew who they were talking about, after all, even when they avoided his name. That they still labored to speak of him was clearest proof of his lasting power, even beyond death. He had been instrumental in the fallen Empire everyone now agreed had been the enemy-- though even now in the system there were bitter whispers reflecting on the lost stability and order of the time, which he heard in rundown hangars and derelict cantinas when he snuck covertly from the hold of the Falcon during his father’s outings. That regime and its power was as much a part of Ben's heritage as Luke's unsteady beginnings of renewed Jedi order . . . but it had been made clear to him that his grandfather's was not a path acceptable to consider, not when it had intimately robbed his living family of so much. In the very same breath he had taught him of the Force, Luke had cautioned the imperative of resisting the dark side-- the pull of fear and anger and greed for total power over others. Ben was already familiar enough with the first two; _if only_ he could fathom what the latter would be like . . . 

Was _that_ why his parents had declined each time Luke had come again to ask about him, leaving behind only a sampling of basic training drills to keep him interested? Did they intend to forestall his progress in hopes he might never master his will over the Force, for fear he might achieve a dark potential more forbidding than the one who had preceded him? Were they _jealous_ of his power?

He wanted to be angry about it, righteously outraged by their weaknesses and failures and the fear and weakness they had instilled in him in turn, able to free himself from their expectations and come into whatever greatness was in his destiny regardless of what they thought about it. Yet something in him was hesitant, held back by the same assured calm that had soothed him in the wake of his confrontation with his father, the clear and compassionate understanding of the light side of the Force comforting him in the knowledge that there was nothing malicious in any of the choices his parents had made for him.

He led his nightstand fall with a thud, wondering if all of this would be easier if he didn't _have_ parents.

***

Han’s entrance was as quiet as his exit had been loud. He closed the door gently behind him as he stepped carefully into the darkened room.

Leia had fallen asleep at work, her cheek resting on the illuminated panel of the vast map. He was struck by the poignant loneliness of her midnight vigil, how hard she was working despite being left alone for the night. He softly touched her shoulders and she startled awake with a jerk, trained by a lifetime of caution, but calmed as his gentle grasp eased into a massage.

"Have you decided to come back, be my partner, and include me in your parenting decisions?" she asked, voice sharp but tempered by the overwhelming relief that he had returned. She _knew_ he would, every time, and yet . . . 

"Have you admitted to yourself that our son needs something more than you trying to defeat his every possible enemy for him before he even meets them?" he countered.

The ritual was as close as the two of them ever came to apology, but it was implicitly understood; of course both of them had.

Leia had sat up with her maps but her midnight study had been much more a meditation on her son. “He has so much of his grandfather in him," he admitted as she licked her dry lips, still uncomfortable with admitting this to herself. “But I didn’t have any say in _his_ fate; this time, I might.”

“You can’t stamp out every bad thing in the universe in hopes Ben will never know the dark side exists. He has to learn to fend against it for himself.”

Leia closed her eyes and nodded. “He needs Luke."

Han didn't argue, which was the surest sign of his agreement-- though she could still sense his lingering hesitation and reticence. She had been a little terrified when she felt the quickening inside her mere months after the battle in Endor; she did not doubt Han loved her, but she had her concerns as to how an adventuresome rogue who had answered to no one would serve as a father-- just as she wondered how a revolutionary who had made herself a top target of the Empire could become a mother, with something of greater value to protect than merely her own life. Although he had made missteps-- as had she-- the fierceness of Han's love for their son was undeniable.

"I just didn't think it would have to be this soon," he sighed.

“I hope it’s not too _late_ ,” Leia confessed, hoping she didn't sound too dire. “I hope he’s not too far gone.”

Han held her shoulders more tightly. He hadn’t realized this fear already haunted her as badly as it did, and felt guilty for implying earlier she hadn’t even thought of it. "He's not that bad," he tried to assure her. "He just gets frustrated now and then."

“You only see it when he explodes, but I can feel his fear and anger all the time,” she continued, “and it’s _there_ all the time. It’s hard for me to be around because I can feel it so strongly; it hurts to know how much he’s suffering, and I can feel it affecting me. And now it’s beginning to affect _you_ , too.” She placed a hand on top of his and squeezed. “It’s beyond what we can do for him, Han. If he’s going to learn to calm it and focus his abilities into something positive, he’s going to need Luke. He’s the only one of us who has any experience with this.”

“But Luke only _fought_ the dark side,” replied Han, furrowing his brow. “He never struggled with it himself.”

“Oh, but he did. I could feel it him when he found out about his-- our-- father. How betrayed he felt, how angry and afraid he was knowing he would have to face him again. How darkly he imagined taking revenge for our capture and Obi-Wan’s death. How he even felt willing to _become_ something like him if only to defeat him. Just because he didn’t show it openly, just because he doesn’t talk about it now, doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.”

Han swayed sheepishly behind her. “I guess I always figured he would just outgrow his temper."

“Like you have?” Leia asked with a wry smile. “He’s not yet a teenager; it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

“You really think Luke will be handle him on top of all his other students? When the two of us couldn’t do it?”

“It’s not that we _couldn’t do it_ , it’s just that we have to recognize there are things he needs we can’t provide. Being around the other students will be good for him, and he can’t possibly get any better training now than by the one who was taught by the last great masters of the age of the Jedi. And he will be with family-- just not us.”

The silence indicated they were agreed and at peace again, though as he often did Han had one more thing weighing on his chest, apologies and sentiment his roguish pride still made him uncomfortable with expressing.

“You're exhausted. You really shouldn’t stay up and wait for me every time," he made a show of scolding. "Don't you trust me at all? You _know_ I wouldn't ever not come back for you and Ben, you know that I--"

She didn't need to make him say it aloud. “I know,” she replied, tipping her chin back so that he could kiss her forehead.


End file.
